1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to acquiring blood-vessel data, or more particularly, to a system and method of substantially synchronizing the acquisition of blood-vessel data to an identifiable portion of heartbeat data.
2. Description of Related Art
Blood-vessel data (e.g., data that can be used to identify the shape of a blood vessel, its density, its composition, etc.) can provide useful information in the diagnoses and/or treatment of a patient. For example, intra-vascular ultrasound (IVUS) devices use blood-vessel data to reproduce or image a blood vessel. Specifically, a transducer is attached to a distal end of a catheter and electrically connected to an IVUS device. The transducer is then placed inside a particular blood vessel and used to transmit acoustic signals. The reflections of these signals are then received by the transducer, converted into electrical signals, and transmitted to the IVUS device. The electrical signals are then used to create an image of the blood vessel (or a portion thereof).
Blood vessels, however, are continuously expanding and relaxing in response to blood being pumped there through. Thus, by continuously gathering blood-vessel data, a blood vessel, as it expands and relaxes, can be imaged. If, however, the blood vessel needs to be monitored in a particular position (e.g., to image the blood vessel as if it were standing sill—i.e., not expanding and relaxing), it may be necessary to acquire the blood-vessel data when the blood vessel's shape is substantially uniform (i.e., when the blood vessel is in a particular position).
The traditional method of doing this (at least with respect to an IVUS device) is to gather both blood-vessel and heartbeat data (e.g., EKG data), use the blood-vessel data to generate real-time images (i.e., video of the expanding and contracting blood vessel), record these images onto a VHS tape, and use a computer and the heartbeat data to extract relevant frames from the VHS tape. The heartbeat data is used by the computer because the rhythm of the heart is related to the expansion and contraction of the blood vessels. Thus, by extracting the frames recorded during an identifiable period in the heart's cycle, the blood vessel can be monitored as if it were standing still—i.e., not expanding and contracting.
The drawbacks of this method is that image resolution is lost when the data is recorded onto the VHS tape. Furthermore, this method is extremely time consuming. Not only is unnecessary data (i.e., data unrelated to the identifiable period) gathered and recorded onto the VHS tape, but processing time is necessary to extract the relevant frames from the VHS tape. Thus, a need exists for a system and method of acquiring blood-vessel data from a blood vessel in a particular position that overcomes at least one of these drawbacks.